News from the Research Administration and Compliance Office at the University of California, Berkeley

June 15, 2012

NIH Provides “LikeThis” Search Tool in eRA Commons

The National Institutes of Health eRA Commons has a new LikeThis search tool to help principal investigators find and learn about other research projects. By entering specific scientific terms or accessing their own grant applications or grants and clicking on LikeThis, investigators will be provided a listing of similar funded projects and/or publications.

The LikeThis tool is available to PIs registered in eRA Commons and is available as a link after logging in to eRA Commons. The search data is confidential and is not available to other users of this site.

NIH suggests that PIs can use LikeThis to determine which NIH Institute or study section to list as a preference in application cover letters. PIs can enter scientific text from their grant application into LikeThis to find similar grants, including the name of the NIH funding Institute as well as a list of the study sections where these were reviewed. Alternatively, PIs can access their previously funded or unfunded grants from the “My Applications” tab in LikeThis to find similarly funded grants.

LikeThis is currently available to PIs only. However, after July 20, the tool will be available to Signing Officials as well as others with eRA Commons roles such as Trainee, Post Doc, and Assistant.